Happy New Year--And Thanks For Being My Friend! :)

Happy New Year! (Does anyone else keep thinking it's Saturday?) :)

For the first post of 2016, let's have a look at an autographed photo of Jack Kelly which recently became a part of the Kellection:

I'm sure you'll recognize a couple of things about this photo. Of course, the face is familiar. And the phrase--"Thanks for being my friend!"--is also familiar. (I've seen it inscribed on quite a few photos JK autographed.)

However, there's also something unusual and unique about this photo, or rather, about what was included with it:

The envelope in which the signed photo was originally sent to a fan in 1981! With the name of JK's real estate holding company, "August II Inc.", printed on both the envelope and the address label. JK was serving on Huntington Beach's city council in 1981 and would later be elected as the city's mayor in 1983 and 1986.

JK's daughter, Nicole Kelly Garner, now uses the August II name for her award-winning video production company. As she explains on her company's site, "Founder and Executive Producer, Nicole Kelly Garner, named the company after her father, John Augustus Kelly Jr., also known by his stage name Jack Kelly, from the famed TV western series Maverick. Jack being the second and Augustus, his middle name, August II came about. Many now simply refer to the company as 'A2', in-short."

And now, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for "being my friend" and for reading TDS. I've enjoyed researching and writing each post since 2009 and I hope to continue doing so for a long time. I hope you all will continue to enjoy reading TDS, too. :)